


summer nights and fireflies

by michiko (afire)



Series: once upon a december [4]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Again, F/M, defining a relationship, for margo, i suppose this is fluff, my good people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afire/pseuds/michiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a story everyone knows, a story that's been told time and again, a story that never gets old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	summer nights and fireflies

_" Do you, Luke Hemmings, take Hailey Vega to be your wife?" the voice of the four year old 'pastor' rings out across the school playground, accompanied by the giggles of the audience that has gathered to watch the ceremony. Luke sniffs and rubs a hand across his nose._

_"I do." he says, grinning at his friend in front of him. Hailey is all rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes, smiling at him from under her bangs._

_"And do you, Hailey Vega, take Luke Hemmings to be your husband?" the 'pastor' continues, flipping through the paper book that they made a few minutes ago to be a pretend bible. He looks really important, and is proud of that, blue plastic doctor's glasses perched high on his nose. Hailey smiles, poking Luke in the gut with a finger before answering._

_"I do." she says over the sound of Luke grunting and whining about how he can't take much more of this._

_"Then I pronounce you husband and wife."_

_Luke leans forward to peck her on the cheek, then draws her close in a warm hug. Hailey hugs him back just as tightly, cheeks faintly flushed from the cold and, okay maybe the kiss played a part as well._

* * *

Luke sighs as he swings himself out of bed, running a hand through his messy blond hair. He doesn't know why school has to start so early, noon would be a much better time for education to begin. Nevertheless he couldn't be late again or it was detention, and hell if he wanted to stay in school longer than he had to. Besides, he might snag a seat next to Hailey if he got there early.

He hasn't forgotten her, it’s been 13 years but he still hasn't forgotten her. He hasn't forgotten the fake wedding they held either. A faint blush spreads across Luke's face as the memories swim to the surface. He's still crushing on her, after all this time.

Luke doesn't talk to Hailey much anymore, they drifted apart once high school started and she has her own set of friends now. Luke checks up on her by getting Cal to ask his girlfriend how Hailey is doing. Emilie and her are good pals, and Cal and Em are getting along great. Luke wishes the same could be said for him and Hailey.

Ah well at least he gets to see her in school. They're in the same geography class, and she's literally the only highlight of his day. If Luke's lucky, he gets to sit behind her. If he's even luckier, he gets to sit beside her. Hailey doesn't stick to the same spot every day, and Luke has to get in at exact the right time to secure a good spot. After she arrives but not after anyone else shows up and sits down where he wanted to. Some days he's late, and has to sit in the back corner where he can't really see her that well. Luke resents those days.

He gets to school early enough and hangs out beside his locker for a while, cracking jokes with the boys before they all head off to different classes. Their timetables are mismatched, but at least they have the same lunchtime.

Luke slides into class 2 minutes before the bell goes off and immediately scans the room for Hailey. She's chosen a seat in the front row, and it's filled up, much to his chagrin. He can still sit behind her though, and Luke flops down into that seat, pulling out his notebook and a pencil, doodling notes into the margins. Luke's notebooks serve a wholly different purpose than he had intended when he first bought them. He was going to use them to, of course, take notes, but now they serve as song writing scrapbooks for when inspiration strikes in class.

Their teacher walks in, all pressed suit and matching tie. Luke doesn't know how he bothers to wake up and deal with it every morning. He can barely get out of bed and comb his hair, much less get into a goddamned suit and loop on a tie. He's droning on and on about stalagmites and stalactites, and Luke is dropping off into a doze when the words 'field trip' gets dropped like a bomb into the class.

Luke's head snaps up at once, along with half the class as he can see. Their teacher signs and carries on with the talk. They're going to a beach to study cave structures, and will complete a project in pairs. Luke is stressing about whether he should ask Hailey to pair up with him when Mr Smith saves him the trouble. He's already picked the pairs, and no changes or switches are allowed. Luke sinks down on to his seat, a little relieved but also worried that he might get paired with someone he wasn't familiar with. That would get him a bad mark, probably, and his geography grade simply cannot suffer anymore.

Mr Smith reads out the names of the pairs, and asks them to sit together to discuss the project. Luke idly doodles in his notebook until he hears his name being called.

"Luke Hemmings and …. Hailey Vega " Luke gives a start, pencil dropping from his fingers. Did he really (ohmygod) just get paired with Hailey? He doesn't have time to gather his wits before she's turning around and shooting him a smile (holyshit) that makes him feel like he's eating liquid rainbow.

"If you want to get started earlier, we could go to my house after school today." she says, but all Luke can see are her brilliant blue eyes, and he mumbles a 'yes' before his brain even registers the offer. It's not until Hailey has turned back around that he realises what he agreed to do.

* * *

After school, Luke meets her at the front steps, grinning sheepishly when he realizes that she had to wait for him. It wasn't his fault that Ms Johnson thought that his science project needed tweaking. He spent two weeks on that cell model but it still wasn't good enough. Luke was starting to think that he would never be good enough.

All thoughts vacated his mind when Hailey smiled at him and said it was alright before starting to walk toward her car. Of course she had a car, Hailey was perfect in every way, why would she not have a car? She's turning back to see if he's following, and Luke jogs along behind her, slowing down to walk beside Hailey when he catches up.

Hailey's car is a shiny silver Toyota, and Luke thinks it suits her very well. On instinct he reaches to open up the driver's side door for her, and is rewarded when Hailey thanks him with a smile. He's momentarily speechless, but snaps out of it in time to go around to the passenger side and slide in.

As they slide in to a stop at the red light outside their school, Hailey reaches to turn the radio on and Luke gives a very minute start as he realizes that it’s the station that plays their songs. It takes him another second before he realizes that if she listens to this station, then it's possible that she's heard some of the band's songs before.

Luke sneaks a glance over to her to see her humming along to the tune of the song that's currently playing. He smiles as he leans his head against the window, thinking about Hailey singing along to his songs. It makes his heart feel warm.

They make it to her house in under 15 minutes, evidently Hailey doesn’t live too far from the school. Luke hops out and opens her door for her; his mother always told him that was how to be nice. Hailey thanks him before getting out and locking her car.

They make it into the house without any further incident, and Luke heaves a sigh of relief, a quiet one, as he takes off his coat and hangs it on the hook behind the door. When he turns around Hailey is gone, but he can hear her in the kitchen, but before Luke can think about whether to follow her, she's out with two glasses of lemonade and beckons to him with one of the glasses before turning and stepping into what he assumes is the living room.

He takes a seat beside her, grabbing his laptop out of his backpack. Their project is to come up with a 'big question' to answer, and the field trip to the caves is to help them with their research. Mr Smith thought it was good to have hands-on experience, rather than finding everything off the internet. And to cap everything of a powerpoint would have to be made detailing their question and how they used the research to answer it. Pretty boring work, but Luke needs a good grade so he supposes he better put his nose to the grindstone and work on it.

Hailey starts up her own laptop as well, saying that they need to decide on a 'big question'. It'll make researching easier if they know what they're researching for. Luke pens down ideas as Hailey sets up a powerpoint template for them to use, putting headers down so all they need to do is fill in the blanks later.

An hour later they have a few questions to decide from, and spend the next hour debating the pros and cons of each, Luke making sarcastic jokes as they go along and Hailey laughing at every one. They end up choosing the one that they thought of together, thinking that it'll be the easiest to answer, but not too easy that the answer would be a simple yes or no either.

Luke leaves her house with a smile, saying that he'll be fine walking home and no she doesn’t need to give him a ride and yes he's sure. Hailey says that they did a really good job today and the project is off to a great start, and Luke smiles and thanks her for inviting him over and the lemonade as he shrugs on his coat. He then gives her a hug before walking down the steps and turns to wave goodbye before stuffing his hands into his pockets and turning to walk home.

* * *

The next day dawns bright and early, not that Luke is awake to see the sunrise. He rolls out of bed half an hour before school and blinks the sleep away. He smiles as he remembers the previous day, trying to rub the blush off his face as he gets dressed. Luke pulls on a beanie as he steps out of the house, squinting against the wind. His hair is bad enough already, don't need Mother Nature to mess it up even more.

Luke gets to school a minute before the bell rings and swings into class just as everyone else is getting their books out. He glances around to find an empty seat, having given up on trying to snag one near Hailey, he woke up too late today. To his surprise, Hailey is smiling at him, arm lifted to call him over. She's saved a seat for him (jesuschrist) and it's (deargod) right beside her as well. For a second all he can do is blink, but their teacher walks in and he has to rush into the seat.

Luke turns to thank her for saving him a seat and Hailey just smiles and waves him off. He then spends the remainder of the lesson sneaking covert glances at her as he tries to take notes for the lesson.

* * *

They continue to work on their project, and before Luke knows it they're texting back and forth every day, not particularly about the project. Luke finds himself smiling more, and becoming comfortable around Hailey. Not so much stuttered words and rosy cheeks as warm laughter and bright eyes.

Before he knows it the date of the field trip is upon them, and Luke is sitting on the bus next to Hailey, sharing earphones and music with her. It's about the best thing that's happened to him that day and Luke is smiling all the way to the caves that they're visiting, making sure to keep extra quiet so he can hear Hailey's voice as she sings along softly.

They get there in record time, or maybe it's just Luke's perception of it. Sitting next to Hailey did that to him. In fact, anything that had to do with Hailey made time fly. He wasn't very happy about it, goddammit time, but Luke deals with it, like he deals with most everything else in his life.

Their teacher gives them three hours to get the required information, and tells them to be back by 4pm, if not the bus will leave without them. And he's being very serious, about it yes indeed, students need to learn to be more responsible blah blah Luke is zoning out. Hailey has to poke him on the arm when Mr Smith is finally done with his speech on responsibility, and they immediately make their way down to the caves.

Luke can tell that their early preparation has made things so much easier for them, as he watches other groups gather into circles and frantically discuss their 'big question'. He and Hailey have their notes on hand and they'll have finished with their research before the three hours are up. The caves aren't a far walk from their meeting point, and Luke jogs backward in front of Hailey most of the way, making smart remarks about the weather and how so and so are really quite annoying.

Hailey laughs as they near the cave, shaking her head endearingly at him. And Luke is, once again, hit with the realization of how hard he's crushing on her. Better do something about it quick before someone else asks her out. Buuut, now they have to concentrate on getting the project done, and Luke chases his thoughts away as he follows Hailey into the cave.

It's dark in here, and Luke fishes his torchlight out of his bag, ready to switch it on. Hailey stops him though, asks him to wait as they walk further in. Luke is confused but, of course, he follows her instructions. When they round the corner, he can see why she told him not to turn on the flashlight. They find themselves in the middle of a large cavern, and it's full of fireflies and their effervescent blue glow. Luke doesn't think he's ever seen Mother Nature so beautiful before. They sit down in the centre of it all, taking notes on the structure of the cave and how this affects the behaviour of the fireflies.

Well Hailey's taking most of the notes, Luke's playing with the fireflies. He hopes she doesn’t mind much, but from the smile that she's shooting him, it looks like she's okay with it. Once he's all played out, Luke goes back to sit beside her and leans over to see what she's writing. Hailey pokes him in the gut when he leans too far and knocks the book right out of her hands. While she's leaning over to get it, Luke is propelled back through his memories to that day when they were four and he had somehow convinced her to marry him.

He's thinking, surprise surprise! No but really he's thinking that, he really likes Hailey. It's been evident for a while now, and perhaps, maybe, she kinda likes him too. At least she hasn't asked him to bugger off, in fact it looks like she's enjoying his company. Luke 's thinking that he wants to, possibly, ask her out. It's a very sudden idea, and if he doesn't act soon he's never going to gather the courage to, so (deepbreath) he turns to her.

"Hey Hailey? I have question."

"Yes Luke?"

(thisisitdon'tmessup)

Luke's mind is whirling, but he has to say something before Hailey deems him crazy and stops talking to him.

"Will you marry me?"

Shit that wasn't how he meant for it to go at all.

"Wait no I meant."

Hailey is already laughing and any attempts that Luke is making to cover up his horrible mistake is lost under her giggles. Her notebook is lying forgotten on the floor next to where she's sitting cross-legged, and Luke is burying his face in his hands to hide his growing blush. He messed this up so badly, might as well crawl under a rock to join Patrick in watching a television made out of sand and eating soggy cereal under the sea.

After a few seconds of muffled laughter and disgruntled embarrassment, Hailey is reaching over to peel his hands away from his face, her blue eyes shining in the incandescent glow of the cave. He can see that she's finding this all very funny indeed.

"Yes Luke I'll marry you.", Hailey says, giggling through her words. Luke groans, he's never going to hear the end of this is he? Probably never. It'll be the words inscribed on his grave. Death by accidental proposal.

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Yeah I know, but the answer is yes all the same."

Luke blinks at her, his brain taking a while to register what she just said. "Wait so-"

"Yes Luke I'll go out with you."

He turns to her and can see that she's grinning bashfully, ducking her head and directing that grin at her shoes. "Really? I mean- wow. I never thought. Wow." And that's enough to set her off again and it feels like she's filling up the entire cave with the sound of her voice.

Luke doesn't mind because he loves the sound of her laughter.

Luke doesn't mind because he gets to hold her hand when they walk out of the cave.

Luke doesn't mind because on the bus ride back to school, she falls asleep with her head on his shoulder and a smile on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at fightiingdragons, this is for margobutt


End file.
